By Jeff Copper, MBA, PCC, PCAC, CPCC, ACG – September 30, 2015
As an ADHD and attention coach, I try to focus on paying attention to what YOU’RE paying attention to. I focus on individuality, and more importantly, I focus on achieving the Aha! Not everyone has the Aha! moment at quite the same time or in the same way. For some, it comes quickly and suddenly while for others there may be a gradual process or build up that leads to an Aha! moment. Laura, one of my clients, was gracious enough to share her experience that led to her Aha! moment and also led to the development of a time management system that works wonders for her. As I said before, I focus on individuality so, when Laura came to me, it took several coaching sessions to learn how Laura’s brain processes information. Instead of just suggesting a one-size-fits-all solution, I had to listen to Laura and work with her.
Through this process, we were able to discover that not only did Laura struggle with time management but that she also struggled with staying on task due to boredom. Laura needed newness to stimulate her interest to keep her attention. Because of this, a simple timer to keep Laura on task would not work as it may for many because Laura would grow bored of the same timer and would begin to ignore it or stop using it, rendering it ineffective. So what did we do? We discovered that, for Laura, the trick was to have multiple timers for different tasks. This allowed Laura to switch timers as she would grow bored of them.
This was an Aha! moment for me. Rotating or changing systems from time to time is “system” itself as it is for Laura.
Laura is an inspiration for many people with ADHD, and she is someone I’ve learned from immensely, and you can, too. She is someone who has embraced her ADHD and by doing so has developed systems that work for her in managing her ADHD symptoms.
If you’re inspired by Laura’s story or just want to see all the cool timers she’s collected along the way, you can check out the full interview HERE!
Changing the system from time to time is good, but it’s also time and energy consuming.
Good point! However, if your system is not working or if your system stops working, it’s worth making the change to get back to managing time.